


Vigil

by sowell



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowell/pseuds/sowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene for "Normal is the Watchword."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I must bow down at the feet of arabian, leucocrystal, and nessaassen AGAIN for providing me with their feedback. They are fabulousness personified. 2) Apologies to Marylane23 for snagging her Say Anything reference.

He’s still there the fourth time she glances out the window, and she can’t take it anymore. She slides out of bed, puts on her fur-lined flip-flops, and eases herself through the front door without a sound.

“It’s a myth, you know,” she tells him, approaching the car. The door is hanging open, jutting halfway into the street.

“What?” he asks. He’s leaning his head back against the car seat like it’s too heavy to lift, and he’s watching her, so closely. Even in the dark, she can see how pale he is. His eyes are rimmed in red and his hair is standing on end, like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. She remembers how he used to do that when he was stressed. She can see a half-empty bottle of whiskey tipped sideways in the passenger seat.

“The whole Lloyd Dobbler thing,” she says, trying to keep her voice light. “Stalking isn’t actually all that romantic.”

“You’re just pissed I didn’t bring my boom box,” he says.

She crosses her arms. “Well, at three-thirty in the morning, I think the neighbors would have been the pissed ones. What are you doing here, Logan?”

He looks incredibly tired, the kind of tired that makes everything move in slow motion, that coats everything in dust and leaves it muted.

“I’m practicing my best Romeo impression,” he says with a ghostly quirk of his lips. “How am I doing? Up to Duncan standards yet?”

 She turns and starts walking.

“So I was driving,” he continues, a little desperately, “and I turned on the radio, and there was this breaking news. Big story. Apparently a Neptune school bus went over a cliff this afternoon.” She stops walking. “Only one survivor, in critical condition,” he continues, and now she can hear the ragged edge underneath the flat exhaustion in his voice. “Everyone else – dead.”

She turns around, and he’s looking at her with something more than relief, more than pain in his eyes. He keeps going. “And I couldn’t stop remembering this thing about how I watched the guy who used to be my best friend and the girl who used to be my girlfriend get on that exact bus earlier today. Now, I’m no detective,” he says, tipping his head toward her in grim acknowledgement, “but I can put two and two together every once and a while.”

Her whole body feels numb. “I can imagine,” she forces out.

“No,” he says. “You really can’t.”

She swallows a couple of times. “You must have been disappointed,” she says, voice level against the erratic rhythm of her pulse. “So close to being rid of me for good.”

“Don’t,” he says, angry in an instant.

She takes a step back toward the car. “I’m fine,” she says gently. “Duncan’s fine. We’re ok.” She reaches out and touches his fingers where they’re clawed into the side of the leather seat. She doesn’t know what makes her touch his hand, when she hasn’t let herself think about his skin in months, but she does, just puts her fingers lightly on his and lets them rest there.

He puts shaking hands around her upper arms and hauls her into the car, lifts her right into his lap, where she can feel his heart pounding in her ear. He smells like tears and alcohol and fear and all the things he’s been torturing himself with for the last six hours while she sat in a warm room with a warm drink in her hands and her father and her boyfriend huddled all around her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers against the soft cotton of his t-shirt. She’s not sure what she’s apologizing for. For not calling him when they haven’t exchanged two civil words in months? For not thinking about the fact that he’d be alone, and worried? For dumping him in the first place? He’s sniffing a little; maybe he’s crying. She never feels quite as small as when he’s curled around her, and now is no exception. She wants to hate that sensation, but instead she finds herself missing it. She burrows into him a little more and takes back the feeling, just for a second.

He shudders against her and finally unclenches his hands from around her shoulders. She can still feel the stripe of each finger on her skin. He inhales softly. “You’re a bitch,” he says, nosing at her hair.

For a second she can’t move. He’s breathing carefully against her neck, and he’s holding her like he means it, but everything’s changed. She can feel his body coiling like a spring under her, tension mounting with every ticking second.

When she can finally trust her voice again, she forces a laugh out of her throat. It sounds brittle, even to her own ears. “Congratulations,” she says, “I think you made it a full two minutes of acting like a real human being. That’s a minute and thirty seconds longer than I expected.”

She starts struggling, and he lets her go immediately. She’s not exactly sure why, but her throat feels funny, thick, and her jaw has gone tight enough to shatter stone. She pushes herself out of his lap, and her feet hit the pavement so quickly that her knees almost give out. Somehow, that feels like his fault, too.

He’s staring at her again, but this time his eyes are wiped clean of everything except anger. His voice, however, is almost bored when he says, “A little fucking notice would be nice next time. You know, for courtesy’s sake.”

“Of course,” she spits, sarcasm barely coating the fury and hurt in her voice. “By all means, make this about  _you_. Please – what can I do to make it better for Logan Echolls?”

“Well,” he says with a grim smile, “You can always hope for another crash.” She sucks in a breath, because she thought that even Logan was above joking about that. Because she can’t be entirely sure he’s joking.

“As always, you’ve set my mind at ease.” He laughs nastily. “Sleep tight. I know I will.”

It’s not until five minutes after he peels off down the road that she can finally make her feet move. She doesn’t sleep at all.


End file.
